Thursday, January 5, 2012

A Series of Half Finished Thoughts

I have OPINIONS on the INTERNET.

On LFR:

When it's a blast, it's a fun ride. When it's painful, it's like putting needles in your eyes. I've had absurd luck in winning loot rolls, but mostly, I treat it as a "pre-trainer" for the actual raid, and a good easy source of 500 VP early on in the week.

It allows me the opportunity to maybe flesh stuff out so I don't feel guilty rolling against my raid team for tier tokens and the such; spreading the upgrades about better. A 384 is fine, too.

On Vidyaguilt:

For Christmas, my sister got me the Batman: Arkham City game. It's fun! It's like the old animated series we grew up watching, with the darker/edgier Christopher Nolan Batman seeping through it. (the number of returning VA help too)

Except, I feel bad for taking time away from playing World of Warcraft to play that instead. I feel like as a GM, I need to be prescient, I need to be seen AND heard often. I'm allowed to play other video games, but I always feel like, "You know, they probably could use one more for a dungeon, or you might have a JC cut they don't have..." while completely oblivious to the fact that I'm pretty easily reached.

More LFR Thoughts:

I feel we'll see less people applying to actual raid guilds because of this. Not because "If this is what raiding is, man, EFF THAT NOISE" or because "I can do this AS MUCH AS I WANT" or even because of some misguided direction towards elitism: People who are not constantly motivated by loot want to see content. And when they've done it, they're done. That's good enough for them! They can focus on doing other stuff in game instead of finding a guild that matches their schedule, arranging their schedule to allow them to continue to raid uninterrupted, finding time throughout the week to finish their weekly dungeon chores so they can buy upgrades to be better at raiding, taking time to study boss strategies, to watch videos, to read about how to play their class wholly and completely to their best, gemming and enchanting with the GOOD STUFF, the expensive enchants...

Or, they can queue for LFR, see the bosses once. If they win stuff, cool. If they lose stuff, cool. When the dragon is dead, they can nod and say "What's next?"

What do you have as a guild manager, a recruiter, a raid team to offer someone like this? LFR isn't going away, think about how you recruit, think about what you have. It's been a recruit's market for a while now, and that is not changing any time soon. Adapt.

On Insomnia:

Sleep deprivation affects a lot beyond "oh I'm just sleepy" - in the workplace, it can cause a number of issues, especially if you are in the detail works of things. Handling of heavy equipment can be made dangerous, too, if your attention slips just a bit.

We raid in the evenings; and by time we get to raid, I've been up at least fourteen hours. It's made putting my thoughts together to speak clearly kind of tricky, and I've been a liability to my guild because of it. A couple people in guild have stepped up to make these calls, and I thank them for it every week, but I want to thank them again because it never feels like enough to just say "thank you" to them in game.

Thank you, Rezz, Dee. I'll get sleeps soon, I think maybe.

Proper Internet Interactions:

No matter who you are, what you do, it's very easy for "an internet thing" to explode into a "real life thing" in the ways that are bad, obviously, which is what I'm vaguely alluding to.

Be decent. You'll find it's a lot easier to get on with people if you're respectful, as if they were there with you. As if you were close enough for them to reach across the table and cuff you upside the ear for saying something offensive.

On Dicking Around:

I like dungeons. It's kinda my thing.

I wish there were more in dungeon to explore, and more going on beyond "This is the Blackrock Mountain Level" or "This is the Skywall level" or "This is the cat people level."

I equate dungeons to dungeons - in Final Fantasy, the most easily accessible boxes have small loot that's good for there and then (potions, tents, healing items) and to find the best stuff, you have to explore the space a bit. I know this was done in Wrath with heroic bosses being "off the beaten path" - and as their content was no longer relevant, it got harder talking people into going back in and doing those bosses. Or, their content was trivialized to the point of being irrelevant because of LFD's introduction, and Triumph badges for EVERY boss kill?

That's all I've got at the moment, nothin' detailed enough to be a full blogpost, but I felt like sharing. What about you? What's on your mind?

6 comments:

I am glad these opinions are free! Run, little opinions, and rejoice in the pixellated meadows!

Re Vidyaguilt, my partner GMs our guild and has similar guilt issues when he plays Skyrim. He often logs onto WoW without a plan, only to say he feels he "should be sociable and catch up with people". If you're happy doing that it's fine, but ultimately you undoubtably contribute a lot already and you shouldn't feel bad for taking a little alone time :)

I really hope you get some nice sleep soon! I can't imagine taking my occasional bad nights and making it a daily occurrence. I'd be on long-term sick leave if that happened. You deserve a break soon!

Finally, absolutely agree with your point on treating others as if they are real people, actually there. So much would be solved by that small shift in manners.

Playing WoW instead of Arkham City is a god damned crime. Between my two play-throughs and my obsession with finishing the content, I've dumped 64 hours of my life into Arkham City, and have less than 70% completion.

I really do want to sit down and play Skyrim and ToR (both are sitting here waiting for install), but with some of the stuff that's gone down lately with people leaving the game within my guild, the last thing I want to do is lose my regular presence for my guildies. Your team is established on the other hand--take a break and enjoy it! The rest of us know where the heck to go to harass you ;)

My best sleeps are drug induced--the problem is timing the drugs so I wrap on a raid night in a nice and cozy little state of mind so I can go to bed immediately after and pass out. It's what I should have done last night when we had wrapped at 9:30 because the raid was done for the week. But instead I sat and talked to people (which was, once again, a needed thing during this week for us), staying awake and losing my concentration on other stuff I was working on. Tonight I decided I wouldn't raid, so I'll be medicating and passing out at some point. I stopped raiding 10p-1a because of lack of sleep--LFR on Tuesday nights sorta puts me back into that time table, but I'm primarily blaming the holidays with messing up my sleep schedule (which was never great to begin with).

LFR: I came, I saw, I killed the Internet Dragon. I'm satisfied. Was it as powerful an experience as going through the months of wipes on LK? No. But I also don't think I found the story nearly as compelling anyways. I wasn't really planning on killing DW this expansion, but now that I have, I'm good.

Guilt: Eff the guilt. I know this is hard because you're a responsible GM who takes pride in his guild, but - you have to look at your long-term interest and health and weigh it against the short term benefits of logging on "just to be social."

Log on with a purpose. It can be a silly purpose - grab some mog gear, do Netherwing dailies, fish for a mount, work on an alt - or it can be a serious one - but log on, do your thing, say good night and move on. If you feel there's not enough coverage throughout the week, tackle that like a manager and get officers to help cover those "shifts".

Sleep Dep: I've wrestled with this, my spouse has REALLY wrestled with it, and it's terrible. TERRIBLE. If it's a schedule problem, look at times where you can possibly nap before the raid. If it's a physical problem, SEE SOMEONE. If it's a mental problem, SEE SOMEONE. These things don't just go away on their own, and there are things that you can do to help.

As a sufferer of long-term sleep dep, I really don't want other people to go through it too. :(

Dicking around: I like BGs. They're my thing. I really wish I could run more BGs with people at different levels without compromising my desire for privacy; BattleIDs can't come soon enough. :)

@ Ara: I think there's a lot that needed to be said, even if I'm lacking time to frame it all! I might come back to some of these a bit more in the future, though, especially with the Cross Realm Raiding announcement.

@ LS: Man, if you could see the backlog I've built up since becoming a GM, you would cry bitter tears... Arkham City is just the most recent addition. Gotham will keep, Azeroth has all my friends in it! (this is my logic every time unless I just flat out disappear for a week to play)